ABC Wednesday Archives - Page 28 of 91

W is for baseball’s Herb Washington

I was leafing through the book The SABR Baseball List & Record Book. It lists “Baseball’s Most Fascinating Records and Unusual Statistics.” I purchased it from Amazon the year it came out, 2007, Amazon tells me, but does not appear to have been updated. Truth is that most of the career records have not changed.

One item early in the book is “More Career Games Played than Plate Appearances by Non-pitchers since 1900 (minimum 100 games).” This is usually a function of a defensive substitution entering the game, replacing a good hitter who is not the best fielder with a good glove man. A guy named Allen Lewis, who I had never heard of, played in 156 games between 1967 and 1973 and had only 31 chances at the plate.

Herb Washington, though, was even more specialized. He played in 105 games in 1974 and 1975, and NEVER had one appearance at the plate. Nor did he ever play on the field. Washington, a track star at Michigan State, was hired by Charles O. Finley, the owner of the Oakland Athletics, to be solely used as a pinch runner.

From the website of SABR, the Society for American Baseball Statistics.

Included in the contract was a clause that required him to grow a mustache before Opening Day. Washington, however, couldn’t grow one little hair. To get the $2,500 bonus that came with growing it, he used an eyebrow pencil to draw a believable mustache and got the bonus. He also got a base-running tutor in former base-stealing champ, Maury Wills…

Washington’s career as “designated runner” got off to a shaky start… he [was] unsuccessful in four of his first five attempts [to steal a base]… For the rest of the season, both Washington and Oakland rolled. He ended up playing in 92 games, stole 29 bases, and scored 29 runs.

But he got too big a lead off first base and was picked off in Game 2 of the World Series by Dodgers pitcher Mike Marshall, tagged by Steve Garvey. All three were MSU graduates.

“The next season …the A’s were rolling when Finley cut the struggling Herb Washington on May 5, 1975. He had played in 13 games with only two steals that season. Said A’s team captain Sal Bando, “I’d feel sorry for him if he were a player.”

Deadspin dubbed him one of the 100 worst baseball players of all time, which seems harsh.

ABC Wednesday – Round 19

V is for A Very Special Christmas

Since the release of the first A Very Special Christmas album in 1987, the series has raised over $100 million for Special Olympics, more than any other benefit series.

I decided to do a second V post this week, the latter focusing on A Very Special Christmas, because:

1) My friend Carla had only recently heard a song from that first album, and didn’t know about the compilations

2) It is St. Nicholas Day, and I needed an excuse to put some more holiday music herein

3) It’s Wednesday, at least in some hemisphere

A Very Special Christmas is “the title of an ongoing series of Christmas music compilation albums that benefit Special Olympics,” and I own the first seven albums. It was “the brainchild of music producer Jimmy Iovine, who wanted to produce a Christmas album as a memorial to his father. The idea of the record benefiting Special Olympics was suggested by Iovine’s wife Vicki, as she was a volunteer for the organization.

“Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss, the founders of A&M Records, along with Bobby Shriver, helped the Iovines realize the project. Since the release of the first album in 1987, the series has raised over $100 million for Special Olympics, more than any other benefit series. The album cover art is designed by artist Keith Haring.”

I’ve linked to each of the titles AND artists below (except Natalie Merchant, for whom I found only one acceptable version).

A Very Special Christmas (1987) – the original, and still my favorite. A few songs swiped the arrangements of Phil Spector’s Christmas album of a quarter of a century earlier.

1. Santa Claus Is Coming to Town – The Pointer Sisters
2. Winter Wonderland – Eurythmics
3. Do You Hear What I Hear? – Whitney Houston
4. Merry Christmas Baby – Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band – Live track
7. Gabriel’s Message – Sting
8. Christmas in Hollis– Run-D.M.C.
10. Santa Baby – Madonna; Done previously by Eartha Kitt
14. The Coventry Carol – Alison Moyet

A Very Special Christmas 2 (1992)

1. Christmas All Over Again – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, written by Petty
16. What Child Is This? – Vanessa Williams

A Very Special Christmas 3 (1997) – ah, these are coming out every five years

3. Children Go Where I Send Thee – Natalie Merchant
8. Oíche Chiún – Enya. Almost every AVSC album has Silent Night, and this is my favorite version
16. We Three Kings – Patti Smith

A Very Special Christmas Live (1999) – or maybe not. “The album was recorded live in Washington, D.C. in December 1998 at a benefit party held by then-President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Clinton to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the founding of Special Olympics.”

A Very Special Christmas 5 (2001) – “Several of the album’s tracks were recorded live in Washington, D.C. in December 2000 at a benefit concert hosted by then-President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Clinton.”

A Very Special Acoustic Christmas (2003) – “As opposed to earlier editions that contained a wide variety of musical styles, this version… featured primarily Country and Bluegrass artists.” I found this only a season or two ago.

A Very Special Christmas 7 (2009) – and there are others, related to the theme, and benefiting the Special Olympics, which I don’t have (yet) such as Jazz to the World (1995) and World Christmas (1996). Maybe next year, I’ll list tracks from the later albums.

ABC Wednesday – Round 19

U is for ultracrepidarianism (ABC W)

Sutor, ne ultra crepidam

Ultracrepidarian is an adjective noting or pertaining to a person who criticizes, judges, or gives advice outside the area of his or her expertise. You probably know them, and if you do not, count your many blessings.

One might think that ultracrepidarianism was a concept invented for the 21st century, with people magically being able to espouse wisdom about everything on the Internet.

In fact, the term “was first publicly recorded in 1819 by the essayist William Hazlitt in an open Letter to William Gifford, the editor of the Quarterly Review: ‘You have been well called an Ultra-Crepidarian critic.’ It was used again four years later in 1823, in the satire by Hazlitt’s friend Leigh Hunt, Ultra-Crepidarius: a Satire on William Gifford.”

And roots are much older than that. Ultracrepidarianism “draws from a famous comment purportedly made by Apelles, a famous Greek artist [of the 4th century BC], to a shoemaker who presumed to criticise his painting.” The Latin phrase ‘Sutor, ne ultra crepidam’, was set down by Pliny [the Elder, 1st century A.D.] and later altered by other Latin writers to ‘Ne ultra crepidam judicaret.’ [It] can be taken to mean that a shoemaker ought not to judge beyond his own soles.”

Thus, the sign of well-trained healthcare professionals, for example, is that if something falls outside their field of expertise, they find the person who knows, not pretends to have an answer.

Still, there was a series of ads from Holiday Inn Express that handle the notion of giving advice outside the area of one’s expertise, which are mildly humorous, involving a helicopter pilot, a nuclear reactor scientist, a surgeon, and a rapper, plus several others.

ABC Wednesday – Round 19

S is for the Statue of Liberty

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

The Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World was dedicated on October 28, 1886, 130 years ago. It was “a gift of friendship from the people of France to the United States and is recognized as a universal symbol of freedom and democracy.”

Here are some fun facts:
Total overall height from the base of the pedestal foundation to the tip of the torch is 305 feet, 6 inches (93.1 m)
Height of the Statue from her heel to the top of her head is 111 feet, 6 inches (34 m)
The Statue has a 35-foot waistline (10.67 m)
Total weight of the Statue of Liberty is 225 tons, or 450,000 pounds (204116.567 kg)

The Statue of Liberty was “designed by sculptor Frédéric Bartholdi in collaboration with engineer Gustave Eiffel” – yes, THAT Eiffel. “Atop its pedestal (designed by American architect Richard Morris Hunt), the Statue” at the entrance to New York Harbor “has welcomed millions of immigrants to the United States.”

The New Colossus is a poem written by Emma Lazarus (1849–1887) “in 1883 to raise money for the construction of the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. In 1903, the poem was engraved on a bronze plaque and mounted inside the pedestal’s lower level.” The most famous part is:
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

I have never been to the Statue of Liberty, despite living within 200 miles of it almost all my life. Now I HAVE seen it, on a ferry going from Manhattan to Staten Island several times. But I understand that actually “visiting Liberty Island is one of the most rewarding experiences” one can have. The Daughter expressed a desire to visit there, the last time we were in New York City in 2013, but it didn’t work out.

Indeed, I wish I had gone last century. “For over a decade, the National Park Service has implemented a reservation system. This is very different from the way past generations once accessed the Statue of Liberty. The National Park Service strongly recommends making advanced ticket reservations.”

And I KNOW this to be true: “There are many aggressive, unauthorized ticket sellers who will try to sell tickets to the Statue of Liberty near Battery Park in NYC. These individuals will often try to scam people through misrepresentation and over-charging… Ferries provide transportation to both Liberty Island (site of the Statue of Liberty) and Ellis Island.”

I expect we’ll go there eventually.

ABC Wednesday – Round 19

R is for Rainbows

I set My bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a sign of a covenant between Me and the earth.

Because I was bereft of a topic, I decided to Google the word rainbows. Interesting things I found:

About Rainbows

Author Donald Ahrens in his text Meteorology Today describes a rainbow as “one of the most spectacular light shows observed on earth”. Indeed the traditional rainbow is sunlight spread out into its spectrum of colors and diverted to the eye of the observer by water droplets. The “bow” part of the word describes the fact that the rainbow is a group of nearly circular arcs of color all having a common center.

Think You Know Rainbows? Look Again

Although the most common rainbow is a single crescent containing every color from red through violet, if you pay close attention, you will discover that rainbows come in a surprising variety of colors and shapes. And scientists are finally figuring out why.

From Wiktionary:

From Middle English reinbowe, reinboȝe, from Old English reġnboga ‎(“rainbow”), from Proto-Germanic *regnabugô ‎(“rainbow”), equivalent to rain +‎ bow ‎(“arch”). Cognate with West Frisian reinbôge ‎(“rainbow”), Dutch regenboog ‎(“rainbow”), German Regenbogen ‎(“rainbow”), Danish regnbue ‎(“rainbow”), Swedish regnbåge ‎(“rainbow”), Icelandic regnbogi ‎(“rainbow”).

XKCD (licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License).

Bible verses about rainbows (Genesis 9:12-17 and others)

God said, “This is the sign of the covenant which I am making between Me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all successive generations; I set My bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a sign of a covenant between Me and the earth…”

Welcome to Reading Rainbow® Skybrary Family

Skybrary is a carefully curated, ever-expanding interactive library of digital books and video explorations designed to engage young readers and foster a love of learning.

Rainbow Bridge National Monument (U.S. National Park Service)

Rainbow Bridge is one of the world’s largest known natural bridges. The span has undoubtedly inspired people throughout time–from the neighboring American Indian tribes who consider Rainbow Bridge sacred, to the 85,000 people from around the world who visit it each year.

The Couch in Rainbow Colors: ‘L.G.B.T.-Affirming’ Therapy

Started in 2006, Antioch’s program is, to its leaders’ knowledge, the country’s first and only graduate-level L.G.B.T.-affirming clinical psychology specialization.